Articles: general-anesthesia.
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The anaesthetic management of a 26-year-old woman who sustained an unstable fracture of C2 when 40 weeks pregnant, is described.
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Tidal volume (VT) delivered by mechanical ventilation during anesthesia may be influenced by factors related not only to the patient and the breathing circuit, but also to the interaction between the anesthesia machine and the anesthesia ventilator. To characterize this interaction, we studied in a test lung the effect of fresh-gas-flow (FGF) (0.25, 2.5, 5, and 10 L/min), inspiratory-to-expiratory time ratio (I:E) (1:1, 1:2, and 1:3), and ventilatory frequency (8, 12, and 16 breaths/min) at fixed ventilator bellows excursions of 300, 600, and 900 ml. The influence of these variables was also estimated mathematically for a pediatric situation: a bellows excursion of 50 ml at 20 and 30 breaths/min. ⋯ Thus it is possible in the pediatric situation to increase the delivered VT by sixfold without changing the ventilator bellows excursion. The magnitude of the changes was slightly larger for the VT settings for adult patients because of the slower respiratory rate. This VT augmentation can be predicted by the product of FGF (ml/s) and inspiratory time (seconds).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
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Anesthesia and analgesia · Jun 1987
Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study Clinical TrialPostoperative confusion after anesthesia in elderly patients with femoral neck fractures.
Fifty-seven patients, all over the age of 64, with femoral neck fracture were randomized to receive epidural or halothane anesthesia to see if the anesthetic technique influenced the incidence of postoperative confusion. All patients were lucid on admission. Using the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III) as criteria for confusion, we found that 44% of the patients developed confusion that correlated closely to a history of mental depression (P less than 0.01) and to the use of drugs with anticholinergic effect (P less than 0.005). ⋯ In patients given halothane, however, early postoperative hypoxemia was associated with confusion (P less than 0.05). Patients with confusion had significantly more postoperative complications and almost four times longer hospitalization times. It is concluded that anticholinergic medication and a history of mental depression are predominant risk factors for development of postoperative confusion and in this respect are more important than the anesthetic technique.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
Memory of cardiac anaesthesia. Psychological sequelae in cardiac patients of intra-operative suggestion and operating room conversation.
Thirty patients scheduled for elective cardiopulmonary bypass surgery were interviewed pre-operatively and postoperatively to assess changes in their emotional state and recollections, both aware and unaware, of intra-operative events. A random selection of patients heard a prerecorded audio tape towards the end of bypass after they were rewarmed to 37 degrees C. The tape contained suggestions for patients to touch their chin during the postoperative interview, to remember three sentences and to recover quickly. ⋯ Seven patients (23%) recalled intraoperative events, five with the aid of hypnosis. Three reports (10%) were corroborated. Pre-operative medication (p less than 0.01) and postoperative anxiety (p less than 0.05) were significant predictors of those patients who reported recall.
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Surgical procedures that involve a local anaesthetic block are often accompanied by light general anaesthesia. It is possible that under these circumstances, the patients are more likely to register auditory events while apparently unconscious. Two groups of children were exposed to auditory stimuli during surgery; one group received a lighter level of anaesthesia than the other. ⋯ The light anaesthesia group retained more items than did the other two groups but this difference was significant (p less than 0.05) only when compared with the other experimental group. This is not very strong evidence of auditory registration, but a greater effect might be found with exposure to emotionally significant material. It is suggested that patients should be protected from unfortunate theatre conversation.